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De Bestiis Marinis, Or, the Beasts of the Sea (1751)

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De Bestiis Marinis, Or, the Beasts of the Sea (1751) University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln Faculty Publications, UNL Libraries Libraries at University of Nebraska-Lincoln 1751 De Bestiis Marinis, or, The Beasts of the Sea (1751) Georg Wilhelm Steller St. Petersburg Imperial Academy of Sciences Walter Miller (Translator) Leland Stanford Junior University Jennie Emerson Miller (Translator) Paul Royster (Transcriber and editor) University of Nebraska-Lincoln, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/libraryscience Part of the Library and Information Science Commons Steller, Georg Wilhelm; Miller, Walter (Translator); Miller, Jennie Emerson (Translator); and Royster, Paul (Transcriber and editor), "De Bestiis Marinis, or, The Beasts of the Sea (1751)" (1751). Faculty Publications, UNL Libraries. 17. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/libraryscience/17 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Libraries at University of Nebraska-Lincoln at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Publications, UNL Libraries by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. De Bestiis Marinis or, The Beasts of the Sea by Georg Wilhelm Steller Translated by Walter Miller Professor of Classical Philology Leland Stanford Junior University and Jennie Emerson Miller Transcribed and edited by Paul Royster Contents DE BESTIIS MARINIS was published (in Translators’ Preface vi Latin) in Novi Commentarii Academiae Scientia- rum Imperialis Petropolitanae, Tom. II, ad annum De bestiis marinis 8 MDCCXLIX (Petropoli [St. Petersburg]: The Manatee 13 Typia Academiae Scientiarum, 1751), pp. 289– The Sea Bear 49 398. The Sea Lion 63 This English translation was published in The The Sea Otter 68 Fur Seals and Fur-Seal Islands of the North Pa- cific Ocean, edited by David Starr Jordan, Part 3 Works by Georg Wilhelm Steller 84 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1899), pp. 179–218, as “Part VIII. — The Early Useful Links 85 History of the Northern Fur Seals.” Illustrations 86 Translators’ Preface Steller’s work, published in 1751 in the memoirs of the Imperial Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg for the year 1749, is a posthumous publication. The greater part of the work was fin- ished in 1742, and Steller himself died, while on his way from Siberia to St. Petersburg, in November, 1745. He was the natu- ralist (a volunteer) of the Russian expedition sent out to explore the northwest coast of North America and to ascertain defi- nitely whether it was or was not joined to Asia, and to search for the imaginary island known as Compagnie Land. The following pages contain a translation of those parts of Steller’s report which treat of the Manatee, or sea cow (Vol. II, pp. 289–330), and the natural history of the sea bear (fur seal) (pp. 346–359), sea lion (pp. 361–366), and sea otter (pp. 382– 398). The measurements and descriptions of the last three are omitted, inasmuch as they can be made better and with more scientific accuracy in our own times. But as the sea cow is ex- tinct, and as nearly all knowledge of it is to be obtained from Steller’s account, that portion of his work is given in full. Circumstances have combined to render the work of transla- tion difficult; not only is Steller’s account written in the zoo- logical Latin of the eighteenth century, but, as printed, it con- tains errors and omissions due to the fact that it was published after Steller’s death, and consequently without revision. Finally, it has been necessary to rely on a type-written copy, the original not being accessible to the translator.1 Thanks are due to President David Starr Jordan and to Professor Oliver Peebles Jenkins for much kind assistance with the technical, scientific, physiological, and anatomical parts of the work. Walter Miller Jennie Emerson Miller 1 The Latin original may be seen online at the Niedersaechsische Staats- und Universitaetsbibliothek Goettingen (Goettingen State and University Library) http://www-gdz.sub.uni-goettingen.de/cgi- bin/digbib.cgi? PPN350003793 O ONE WHO HAS STUDIED various lands doubts that the vast ocean contains many animals which to- N day are unknown, and that there are very many re- gions in the ocean where the curious and venturesome inquiries of Europeans have not yet penetrated; and so no one has been able to examine their contents. Thus it stands with the animals of the sea as compared with the animals of the land. Some live anywhere and everywhere, and through long association come to vary their species in accordance with differences of climate and food, not only in respect to size and color, but also in re- spect to the softness and thickness of their hair; but when transferred to a different climate, after a long interval of time they lose again their specific difference and revert to the first. So European horses when transferred to Siberia become percep- tibly smaller and hardier; and, on the other hand, when taken to India or China they become so much slighter and smaller that after a lapse of time they form a peculiar species. Yakut cattle when transported to Kamchatka become not only larger, but more prolific; and this is the case also with cattle that are sent to the port of Archangel. With English sheep that are taken to Sweden on account of the excellence of their wool, not only the wool changes after a short time, but also their size. If one did 9 DE BESTIIS MARINIS OR, THE BEASTS OF THE SEA 10 not observe this, it would seem that the species of animals in- sorts of sea weeds not found everywhere, and on account of the creased gradually in Siberia alone; for example, the squirrels on structure of its body can not live everywhere even in shallow the Obi are large, and covered with long, ashy gray fur; Obdoric places. But the sea otter, although it lives upon crustaceans and squirrels are one-third smaller, and covered with short but shellfish, can not find this sort of food everywhere beneath a thicker fur; Bargusian squirrels are covered with black, and certain depth of water on account of its closed foramen ovale; and Werchoian squirrels are mottled with black and ash-colored fur. hence it inhabits the rocky, rugged, shallow shoals of America, All this difference, as far as concerns size and thickness of fur, is of the islands in the channel, and of the land of Kamchatka. The due to climate, and as far as concerns the color it is due to the sea lion and the sea bear are migratory animals, and seek the food. Where evergreen larches, or, as they are commonly called, recesses of the sea and uninhabited islands in the same way as spruce and pines, grow, there the fur is a bright, ashy gray; geese and swans, so that there they may get rid of their fat, where the larches are deciduous, there they grow with black fur. copulate, and give birth, and when that is done they return Among animals the seal (phoca) is the only one which lives home in the same way as birds. not only in every part of the ocean, but in the Baltic Sea, the The amphibious Bieluga, a most voracious animal, selects Caspian Sea, and lakes which have no communication with the those places where there are long inlets of the sea; they gener- sea, as in Lakes Baikal and Oron; it is found everywhere at all ally wander about very widely, where they can drive the fishes times of the year. Notwithstanding, this difference occurs, that together and devour them more quickly in larger numbers — the ocean seal (Phoca oceanica) is more common and is distin- such places as are at the mouth of the Ud and Ochotsk and the guished in color from all the rest; it is covered with muddy gray arm of the sea at the mouth of the river Olutora. The walrus, fur, and on the back of its body it has a large spot that is chest- from his love of ease, seeks out desolate and uninhabited places, nut colored and covers one-third of the whole hide. and because of his fatness selects a cold place in the midst of ice, Now, I divide seals into three varieties on the basis of size. and because he finds these conditions at any time of the year at (1.) The largest, which is greater in size than a bull, grows only the mouth of the river Obi, Yenisee, Lena, and Kolima, and in the eastern ocean from the degrees 56 to 59 north latitude, around Cape Tschutschi, he is fond of those regions. The right and is called by the Kamchatkans “Lachtak.” (2) Those of me- whale (balaena), because it is fond of peace, chooses those parts dium size are all as large as a tiger, and are marked with many of the sea less frequented by ships, and since those places are for smaller spots. (3) The smallest ones — the ocean seal, for ex- the most part in the north, whales live there and select those ample — are found in the Baltic Sea, as well as in the port of regions for sleep, for giving birth to their young, and for Archangel, in Sweden, Norway, America, and Kamchatka, and breeding. in fresh-water lakes. They are monochroüs; that is, of one color; Accordingly, the reason why other amphibious animals in- for example, those found in Baikal are of a silvery gray color. If habit not all but only some certain regions of the ocean, must be we inquire why this sort of amphibian alone lives in every ocean looked for in the nature of the animals themselves.
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